SEGUIN - Grupo Siro, a food industry giant from Spain, plans to open a $58.5 million manufacturing plant and research center.

The production of cookies, pastries and other snacks by Siro Group USA should commence in 2016 at its new plant, which will employ 200.

The 275,000-sf plant will be built on 50 acres beside I-10 provided by the Seguin Economic Development Corp.

A research and development center, employing a dozen more workers, is slated to open by 2018 beside the plant.

The factory will be Siro Group’s first in the Americas but likely not its last, said Rut Aranda Carmona, the chief operating officer for the Madrid-based firm that has 19 factories, mostly in Spain, but also in Portugal and Italy.

H-E-B is currently the largest distributor in Texas of the firm's cookies, crackers and cakes.